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The Traveler is Trapped!

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Did the Cabal trap the Traveler?

Welcome back guardians, today we are having a closer look at images from the Destiny 2 trailer that show the traveler looking very different from vanilla Destiny. Specifically, I am referring to these intersecting lines, which are even more obvious in the close up of Zavala. When I lived streamed the lore discussion of the new trailer, someone actually said in chat that the Cabal have put a shield around the Traveler, unfortunately, I instantly dismissed this theory, until I recently looked closer at these images… and now I totally agree. I apologise to that person who suggested that idea, I think you were spot on.

I do think that the Cabal have “trapped” the Traveler, and this is how Ghual, The Red Legion leader has stripped Guardians of their power. If you have not read the Product description for Destiny 2 it reads,

“Humanity’s last safe city has fallen to an overwhelming invasion force, led by Ghaul, the imposing commander of the brutal Red Legion. He has stripped the city’s Guardians of their power, and forced the survivors to flee.”

So this shield, enclosure, capsule surrounding the Traveler may be a Cabal technology used to strip us of our powers. Today we are going to talk about the potential consequence of being separated from the Traveler and the potential story opportunities for new Guardian abilities in Destiny 2, such as will we have to free the Traveler first to regain our abilities, or can we discover new abilities elsewhere?

This is myelin games, and I hope you enjoy this latest destiny lore episode.

Within the grimoire cards it strongly suggests that the Cabal understand that Guardians are powerful because of their Ghosts and they acknowledge that Cabal tactics are ineffective towards guardians. The card reads,

“Guardians can be rebuilt after even total disintegrative trauma. This capability is provided by a small autonomous drone unit called a Dead Person [trans. unclear]. The Dead Person conceals itself during combat. It is not a viable target for direct fire. Saturation attack by artillery/heavy air/orbital fire may have good effect (although Guardians transmat frequently and refuse to assemble into large formations).”

Sooo, the Cabal were working on technology to allow them to destroy Guardians permanently, they understand that their weapons were relatively ineffective as Guardian’s Dead People, aka ghosts, would just bring them back to life, so the Cabal needed a new tactic. I think it very reasonable to assume that the new appearance of the Traveler is in fact Cabal technology, separating us from the Traveler and is part of the Cabal’s strategy to defeat Guardians.

If this is the case, what would be the effect of trapping the Traveler, or at least severing our connection with the Traveler? Well, I think the product description is quite clear, it strips us of our power… so does that mean that we cannot get new powers in Destiny until we free the Traveler from this device… well I think there could be a couple of options.

The first option is that, yes, one of our first missions may be to release the traveler from this device so that we can restore the light and use our abilities again.

The second option, which I found more interesting, yet much more complex, is that we can still use the powers of the light without the Traveler. I believe this option provides some great story telling opportunities to meet new mentors within the world that teach us different techniques of light manipulation.

So, let me explain how this could be possible. The relationship between the Traveler, the Light and our ghosts is relatively unknown and convoluted. Some grimoire cards emphasise how we channel the Traveler’s light, i.e. the abilities we use originates from Traveler, and we just channel it as a weapon. For example, in Guardian Abilities card it reads,

“Only Guardians have the gift of the Traveler’s Light – the ability to channel its energies to project vast power into the world. Even without a firearm, a Guardian is a radiant engine of destruction.”

The Nova Bomb card reads,

“Channel the Traveler’s Light into a bolt of energy with the power of a collapsing star”.

If you consider guardian abilities to be like this, a channelling of light from the Traveler, then of course, if the Cabal separates us from the Traveler with this shield like thing, then we lose our abilities. However, I do think that Light is more complicated than this and the Traveler is not the only source of Light. With the release of Sunbreaker, Storm Caller and Nightstalker sub classes, different sources of Light were introduced. For example, The Hammer of Sol quest line has you go to Solar Energy Farms on Mercury and then the Forge on Mercury, where the leader of the Sunbreakers, Ouros unlocks the sunbreaker ability for you. The questline really reinforces that this is energy from the Sun, it is solar energy, and the ability to be a Sunbreaker is a light manipulation technique that is taught to you. You have to be taught how to manipulate the light in a certain way to be a sunbreaker. The questline reads,

“Forge your Light into a raging inferno of Solar energy, and pull forth a blazing hammer from the fire. Cloaked in flames, launch your hammer at enemies from afar, releasing a devastating eruption of Solar fire on impact. You burn with the intensity of stars, and no shadow is safe from your Light.”

For the Stormcaller questline you actually unlock this power from going to Mars and engulfing yourself within an Arc Storm, the Vex where actually farming the arc lighting in this area. The questline reinforces that Arc light is not just from the Traveler but is within side all life. It reads,

“Meditate. Focus. Draw the static from within. The Arc is inside all life. You must feel it take hold, let it flow through, but not consume you. You are a conduit. Between sky and earth. Electricity and matter. Life and death. You are a weapon.”

Lastly, the Nightstalker Shadowshot grimoire card speaks about summoning the power from the Void itself, not channelling light from the Traveler, but actually taking power from the Void, remember that we also enter the blackgarden to claim this new ability. The grimoire card reads,

“Summon the power of the Void to draw back and launch a precision long-range projectile that reaches out and snares enemies with slowing, draining tethers of Void Light.”

To summarise this is how I think guardian abilities work, when we are revived by our Ghost for the first time, something is unlocked, the Traveler/Ghost unlocks our ability to manipulate and use the Light as a weapon, Light can come in multiple forms and from multiple sources, which includes the Traveler itself, the sun, lightning storms, the void itself. However, there is also evidence that light is already inside us, as previously mentioned with Arc light specifically but it is also mentioned in the Guardian abilities card, it reads

“While these abilities rise from within, Guardians master their power in different ways.”

In general, I think Guardians channel and manipulate the light as a weapon but light comes from many different sources, not just the Traveler. I also believe, that our abilitiy to manipulate and wield the light is something that develops over time, it is something that is learnt from our mentors and vanguard. In the early days of the city I believe that subclasses were much less defined and guardians were still discovering different ways to manipulate light to use it as a weapon. This is reinforced by the Sunbreaker grimoire card which reads,

“Forge the fury of undying suns. Some Titan orders predate the City, born of a darker time, when Light was an untamed weapon.”

So how does this relate back to Destiny 2 and the idea that the Cabal have trapped, encapsulated, separated us from the Traveler. Well losing our connection with the Traveler may result in us losing our major source of Light, which I think could temporarily strip us of our powers, which is all the Cabal would really need. They just needed to disable us for a short period of time whilst they launched the invasion.

So to return our power we will need to find some alternate sources of light, remember previously we used solar energy from Mecury, Arc energy from the storms on Mars and void energy from the Black Garden, if the Tower has been destroyed with our ships, this may be one of the barriers to restoring our powers, we cannot find a great enough source of Light to channel our abilities.

What I really like about this idea, it gives Bungie a great opportunity to redefine and reset the subclasses. For example, we may be forced to find all new sources of Light energy to use our abilities, i.e. maybe there are other forms of light apart from Solar, Arc and Void or maybe Bungie will stick with the same elements however we will need to find new sources of this Light and new ways to wield and manipulate it. Regardless, I definitely think, that we will be introduced to new mentors and guardians in the field who will teach us different light manipulation techniques that we can use to combat the Cabal.

That concludes this latest destiny lore episode. If you would like to support the channel. Leave the phrase, “trapped” to represent the traveler encapsulated by the Cabal.